Charging for services and generating income by local authorities

During 2015-16, the Auditor General examined how local authorities use their powers to introduce and increase charges on services, how performance on generating income has changed in recent years, and how the process of consulting with users, and assessing the impact of charging decisions on users, is managed.

Based on the findings of this audit, the Auditor General has concluded that despite raising more money from charging, authorities are not pursuing all options to generate income because of weaknesses in their policies and in how they use data and information to support decision making.